I love it when allies step forward to strongly support us. It’s doubly meaningful when that ally is a civil rights legend who knows that discrimination is discrimination; there is no barometer as to how much any minority group has to suffer to deserve basic human rights.
Julian Bond knows this; he has been a steadfast supporter of LGBT rights. In an op-ed in the Baltimore Sun, he makes the case as to why Maryland must end marriae discrimination. A snippet:
As a civil right activist, I have spent my life fighting to make ours a more just and fair society. That’s why I urge the Maryland General Assembly to support marriage equality and pass the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act. I firmly believe that this is a matter of civil rights, equal protection and equality. Civil rights are positive legal prerogatives – the right to equal treatment before the law. These are rights shared by everyone; there is no one in the United States who does not – or should not – share in enjoying these rights. Discrimination is wrong no matter who the victim is. We cannot move toward full human rights protection and opportunity without confronting – and ending – homophobia. For it is homophobia that is at the root of denying the freedom to marry to gays and lesbians. As my late neighbor and friend, Coretta Scott King, said in 1998:
“Homophobia is like racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in that it seeks to dehumanize a large group of people, to deny their humanity, their dignity and personhood.”
And in 2000 she added:
“We have a lot more work to do in our common struggle against bigotry and discrimination. I say ‘common struggle’ because I believe very strongly that all forms of bigotry and discrimination are equally wrong and should be opposed by right-thinking Americans everywhere. Freedom from discrimination based on sexual orientation is surely a fundamental human right in any great democracy, as much as freedom from racial, religious, gender or ethnic discrimination.”
And raising Coretta Scott King’s support for equality is so necessary. As we have seen, Bernice King, her daughter, has been out there using religion-based bigotry to hold an anti-equality position regarding civil marriage. And Julian Bond also drops Loving v. Virginia in there for good measure; those in favor of continuing marriage discrimination know they are on the losing side of the equality argument. You may make our lives miserable along the way, but you will ultimately lose.
Three years ago we celebrated the 40th anniversary of a case aptly called Loving v. Virginia, which struck down anti-miscegenation laws and, many years later, allowed my wife, Pam, and me to marry in the state that declares “Virginia is for lovers.” Then, as now, proponents of marriage-as-is invoked “God’s plan.” The trial judge who sentenced the Lovings said that when God created the races: “He placed them on separate continents. … The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.”
God seems to have made room in his plan for interracial marriage. He will no doubt do the same for same-sex marriage.
